An Analytical Study on Role of Forensic Accounting in Detection and Prevention of Financial and Cyber Crime With Reference to Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

The TRAI has reported a total number of active telecom subscriptions in India at 1.15 Billion in 2021 of which roughly 750 Million are Internet users today. This indicates that every 1 out of 2 Indian is an active user of the Internet. The internet penetration is only going to increase further in this decade, especially into the rural areas with cheaper smart phones and affordable telecom services. newlineAs is said that science is a necessary evil, and so is the Internet coupled with today s integration of technology into our daily lives. It can be devised as boon or a curse depending on the users intentions and objectives. With India moving towards digitization of records, processes, policies, registrations, information collection and dissemination, it is equally susceptible to risks of Cyber Crimes also. Coupled with the pandemic of 2020, in India, 50,035 cases of Cyber Crime were registered which is 12 % increase over the 44,735 cases reported in 2019 alone. Of the total cases, over 60% of the Cyber Crimes were committed with the intention of defrauding. newlineThis figure in 2014 was 7,201 while in 2013 was only 4,356. Roughly 77% of all Cyber Crimes are reported to be computer related offences (Section 66 B,C,D,E of the Information Technology Act 2000) while the others included cases related to publication and transmission of sexually explicit and obscene content (Section 67 A,B,C of the said Act). The total Cyber crime grew to 21,796 cases in 2017 (reported by National Crime Records Bureau). This trajectory clearly indicates the urgent need for safeguarding India s cyber space and an immediate awareness training of vulnerable netizens. newlineCyber Forensics is a critical branch of Forensic Audit which assists in evaluating a crime trail using sophisticated softwares, data extraction tools and data algorithm analysis. It aims at working backwards to identify the origin of a transaction or originator of a cyber fraud, trail after trail. newlineThis research is a step towards evaluating the efficiency and role of such tools and softwar